Summary

Part II, entitled “Breach,” begins with Chapter 8. Toms River Chemical was now Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corporation. Its Rhode Island branch closed down because of polluting. This meant that the pharmaceuticals created in Rhode Island were now being created in Toms River.

The turning point for Ciba-Geigy and the community came when a sinkhole opened up in the middle of two busy residential roads, close to schools and a large mall, on April 12, 1984. The liquid waste the company had been pumping into the ocean (which came from their own factory and other companies that were paying Ciba to dispose of their waste) had finally chewed through the steel pipe and eroded the ground around it. Most people did not know that they had a pipeline running right by their homes. Local reporters, such as Don Bennett for the Ocean County Observer newspaper, started publicizing...